ANAHEIM : 5 Medflies Found; Area Quarantined

The state has banned transporting fruits and most vegetables grown in a large portion of the city after five Mediterranean fruit flies were trapped in a neighborhood west of Disneyland, officials said Friday.

California Department of Food and Agriculture officials also said they plan on Monday to release 2 million sterile fruit flies by truck and plane in a 13-square mile area surrounding the intersection of Katella Avenue and Euclid Street.

Officials said there will be no aerial or ground spraying of malathion, a poison that is sometimes sprayed in Medfly zones.

The quarantine’s boundaries are roughly Western Avenue to the west, the Riverside Freeway to the north, Nohl Ranch Road to the east and the city’s southern boundary.

All fruits and most vegetables are included in the quarantine and they cannot be transported off of the property where they were grown, even to another property within the zone.

Exempted from the quarantine are leafy vegetables such as lettuce and cabbage and those grown underground such as potatoes and carrots.

Violators could be fined up to $350.

The five trapped Medflies, which included a mated female capable of laying fertilized eggs, have been captured since Sept. 29, officials said.

An adjoining 161-square-mile area of Westminster, Santa Ana and Tustin has been under an identical quarantine since mid-summer after 15 flies were trapped in Westminster.

“The idea of a quarantine is to isolate infested fruits and vegetables and keep them from leaving the area and contaminating produce somewhere else,” said Larry Hawkins, spokesman for the state’s Cooperative Medfly Project.

The sterile flies are released in hopes that they will mate with their wild counterparts, breaking the reproductive cycle and eradicating the pests without using poisons.

Medflies are targeted for destruction because of the damage they can do to California’s $17-billion agriculture industry, the nation’s largest.

Medflies puncture fruit and some vegetables to lay their eggs inside.

When the eggs hatch the larvae eat away at the fruit or vegetable, spoiling it.

And the flies can even hamper the sale of fruit they don’t touch.

If Medflies are perceived as being widespread in California, other states and countries may protect their own crops by banning California produce from being sold there.

“If we don’t eradicate the Medfly and keep it from establishing itself in this state, we will be forced to go to a full-scale chemical option as a last resort,” Hawkins said.

A common misconception among many back-yard fruit growers is that while produce cannot be moved outside the quarantine area, it can be moved within the zone, Hawkins said.

“The quarantine area includes (an uninfested) safety zone around the area that is infested,” he said.

“Moving produce within the quarantine area can spread the infestation and force us to widen the quarantine.”